At Dusk Through Narrow Streets
by unicornesque
Summary: "'We shall hold fast for as long as there is breath. We shall endure for as long as there is hope,' he promises in a voice fairer than gold and brighter than glory. 'Damn,' she sighs, 'there goes my weekend.'" The revolution lasts longer than expected, and Enjolras and Éponine go a little stir-crazy at the barricade.
1. Day One: Melusine

**Notes:** Elements from the book, film, and musical, but mostly head-canon. THIS SHIP HAS RUINED MY LIFE, YOU GUYS. I was floored by all the positive feedback to "Years Built on Sand." loveholic198 even made a gorgeous photoset for it, which you can view at my Tumblr ( youarethesentinels . tumblr . c * m / post / 41449263403 / years-built-on-sand-by-unicornesque-i-was ). To reviewer Meela who requested if I could do something with the fortune-telling prompt, I do want to, but I'm waiting for inspiration to strike. In the meantime, I hope everyone likes this new story. Comments, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome. Onward!

* * *

**Day One: Melusine**

* * *

The books were the first to go when everything went to hell, and trying to keep them earned Éponine the first smack from Thénardier's heavy hand. He'd been sorry, had wept at her feet and apologized, but as the years passed he grew more prone to hitting and less sorry about it.

She had adored those books. She is thinking about them now because, in front of the Corinth wine shop, a rampart rises, casting its long shadow on the cobblestones of the Rue de la Chanvevrie. This, then, is the tower of her childhood fairytales, a crude assemblage of planks and pianos, tables and chairs. It's not as grand as she imagined, but Éponine is no stranger to dreams turned sour.

On the other hand, Enjolras looks like he leapt out from the pages of her storybooks as he carefully props up the flag. She watches from the corner of the alley while he stands on the barricade, tall and lean and defiant, the light of the dying sun sending waves of fire into his blond hair, the red flag billowing in the air like a stream of blood.

There is a prince at the heart of the tower; that is why it must stand.

The National Guard is coming. She hears their boots clanking on the ground with the ears of one adept at listening for footfall. Cosette's letter burning a hole in her pocket, she tears herself away from the safety of the Rue Mondétour.

"There's a boy climbing on the barricade!" Joly cries as the soldiers advance.

The one thing Éponine didn't know- for how could she have?- is that, in the thick of war, young men tend to be startled by sudden movements.

She hears the shot, the shouts. She feels the sting at her side as she scrabbles up the tower. Blackness closes in, but, before it can take her completely, she finds herself staring into eyes as dark blue as winter glass, at haughty features contorted in shock.

_Not you, _she wants to tell Enjolras as he and Monsieur Marius haul her trembling body over the barricade. _I'm not dying for your damn revolution. _It suddenly becomes crucial to her that he knows this, but he is soon gone from her blurry eyes, her vision prickling at the edges until the only light comes from the glint of raindrops on the tip of Monsieur Marius' nose.

According to Maman, it had also rained when Éponine was born. She's always been a creature of water, flowing around circumstances not of her own making, sweeping the debris of other people's lives into her embrace, trickling into the spaces between stories. She will leave the world the same way she entered it, in tears.

Éponine presses the damp letter into Monsieur Marius' hands. _Sorry, Mademoiselle, I've bled all over your pretty little handwriting. _She tells him she loves him. She closes her eyes and lets the darkness fall.

* * *

The first time she saw Enjolras, she'd felt such contempt. Women weren't allowed in the back room of the Café Musain, so she'd dressed in boy's clothes and made herself invisible at a table in the corner. It was warm there and at least she could keep Monsieur Marius in her sights.

Her attention, however, was soon caught by the other boy, the pretty one with the big words. He spoke enthusiastically of the elevation of society and the common good, although he was the farthest thing from common, with those sharp aristocratic features and that cultured drawl and the way he was prone to falling back on his Latin. It was amusing, really, how he discoursed on the plight of the working class while gesturing with soft and slender hands that had never so much as lifted a cart.

But Éponine kept coming back, even on the nights Monsieur Marius wasn't there. Enjolras' passion was reminiscent of knights slaying dragons, of maidens searching the ends of the earth for their lost loves. He made for a good story, this bourgeois prince. Her fingers twitched with the ghosts of crinkled pages.

After a while, her disdain was still there, but slightly less palpable; she'd come to view him with something close to amazement- he was _serious-_ and as May faded into June, she watched him and his friends toast loudly to revolution, the shifting fire catching the strange light in their young eyes, and it didn't take her long to realize that the shudder going down her spine was neither contempt nor disbelief, but fear.

* * *

Water flows around, and maybe parts of her flow around the bullet as well, because when she opens her eyes she is not dead.

She's been dragged into the wine shop, kept carefully out of the way, lying next to a snoring man who positively _reeks _of alcohol. Grantaire. She hears voices, but no war. She wonders if it was the descent of silence that woke her up… but, no, she remembers in a haze a vibrant shout of _Vive la France _followed by a deafening crack. That was what jolted her back into consciousness.

"That's it, then," someone quietly says. "They've executed Jehan."

"You've been repeating that for the past half hour," an irritated voice snaps. "We need to talk about what happens next."

_Who's speaking? _Éponine tries to move her head but her body doesn't obey. She opens her mouth, to cry out or to clear her throat or to- well, do _anything- _but no sound emerges from her parched lips. Her eyes swivel wildly and she catches a glimpse of Mabeuf, cold and still beside her. They think she's dead. This is the corpse heap.

_And the drunk pile, _she adds as Grantaire turns over in his sleep and the smell of liquor washes over her in yet another wave.

"What's Enjolras going to do?"

"He says we can ride it out. We have some supplies… what the people aren't taking with them."

From the hushed conversation of the men she can't see, Éponine begins to piece together what's happened. After the skirmish where Jean Prouvaire had been taken prisoner, the National Guard announced that they would be launching no more offensives. They intend to starve out the rebels. They've established a perimeter around the barricade, and anyone who tries to leave after the allotted grace period will instantly be shot. It's a new tactic, perhaps even a deadlier one.

There are many ways a people can fight, but there are also many ways a people can fall.

"Time's up," announces one voice. "Whoever's still here is here for good. Or if we surrender."

"_Until _we surrender."

A derisive laugh. "Do you _know _Enjolras?"

_I'm here, _Éponine wants to scream. _I'm not dead. _And then, more cowardly, perhaps, _I want to leave. _

But she is too weak; she can only stare up at the rafters of the Corinth, her heart a slow and torturous beat, her eyes drifting shut once more.

Like a river held by a dam, Éponine- _Thénardier-_ Jondrette is trapped behind the barricade.

* * *

"_Full of the profoundest grief, Melusina declared to Raymond that she must now depart from him, and, in obedience to a decree of destiny, fleet about the earth in pain and suffering, as a specter, until the day of doom."_

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	2. Day Two: Sole, Luna, e Talia

**Notes: **Thank you, awesome people, for the reviews, follows, and favorites! In this chapter: a _Firefly_ reference and what remains of my schoolgirl Latin, and perhaps a bit of a grudge against Hugo for killing off Prouvaire first. Hope you guys like! Corrections, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome.

* * *

**Day Two: Sole, Luna, e Talia**

* * *

In the early hours, Enjolras orders all the food that can be scavenged from the houses gathered into one place. There's not much left after what the citizens took when they evacuated, but he and Combeferre get down to canvassing, anyway.

"Let's see…" Combeferre taps the paper in his hand. "Gavroche, fifteen workers, the prisoner Javert, ten of us, including Marius-"

"Nine," Enjolras corrects him tersely. "There are only nine of us now."

"Right," Combeferre mutters, shadows falling into his eyes. "I forgot."

"There will be time to mourn later," says Enjolras, who will not allow himself to tarnish Jehan's death by letting it stay his heart with grief. Jean Prouvaire gave his life for the revolution; the revolution will live on in his name.

"Enjolras." Joly appears at his side, fretful and tense. "We need to do something about the bodies. They will soon start to… smell."

"There are coffins at the undertaker's shop. We can seal them in there for now," Enjolras decides.

He and Joly walk into the Corinth. Grantaire has roused himself from his stupor but seems determined to work his way back into it as soon as possible, judging from how he's nursing another bottle.

"_Vive la France," _he croaks, raising his drink to them.

"Go easy on that," says Joly. "You wouldn't want to run out."

Enjolras stops short at the sight of the two bodies on the floor. _I killed you, _he thinks, staring at the pale faces of the churchwarden Mabeuf and the girl Éponine. _I didn't pull the trigger, but I carried your bullets. _

He had known- in an abstract sort of manner at the back of his head- that not everyone will come out of this alive, but seeing the proof of it now is almost too much. Suddenly, he is glad that Jehan perished on the other side of the barricade, far from his eyes. His reaction to his friend's corpse would have been worse.

"Grantaire, give us a hand, won't you?" Joly asks, lifting Mabeuf by the arms.

Grantaire starts to protest, but he takes one look at the haggard expressions of the two other students and slowly rises to his feet. He and Joly haul the dead man out of the Corinth, leaving Enjolras alone with Éponine.

She is silent as she always was, but infinitely more still.

* * *

It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to realize that the gamin always hanging around at the corner table of the Musain was, in fact, a gamin_e_. There were some things a cap and loose clothes couldn't hide, such as the curve of a cheek, the quiet little steps, the sweep of lashes. He found it sad- when he had time to think of it at all- that she was following an oblivious Marius around like a lost puppy. This kind of devotion was curious to a boy who had ever only loved an idea, and so he began to watch her through side glances. He began to notice things about her from the corners of his eyes.

Grantaire's jokes made her smirk. Jehan's poetic turns of phrase made her snicker. Bossuet's baldness seemed to fascinate her, while Feuilly's bold rhetoric made her sigh and look away. She was perpetually in motion, all fiddling fingers and tapping feet; her stillness, whenever it took hold, was that of a bird before flight.

Enjolras knew fire when he saw it, and he sometimes found himself idly wondering how she could possibly have feelings for a limpid Bonapartist like Marius. And then the time for idle wondering was past, because, suddenly, it was June, and Lamarque was ill. As plans for the barricade began to unfurl, he completely forgot about her. She slipped from his mind so easily; perhaps she was water, after all.

* * *

Even in death she is so light. Her bony shoulder-blades dig into his chest as he cradles her, her dark hair draping over his arm like a flag. He scoops her up cautiously, not wanting to drop this fragile thing for fear that she might shatter into pieces.

She stirs, and he almost drops her anyway.

Her eyelids tremble. Her chapped lips form noiseless words as she curls deeper against him, into him, one hand coming up to clutch weakly at his sleeve. He sets her down again as gently as possible, shouting for Joly.

The other boy runs in. His eyes widen at the signs of life. In a flash he's pulled up her shirt to expose the pale, blood-crusted skin underneath, and Enjolras averts his gaze, ever mindful of etiquette.

"Miraculous," Joly breathes. "The bullet missed her vital organs. She's lost some blood, but it's clotted a bit…" He rushes out once more, muttering about bandages, and Enjolras is left kneeling on the floorboards beside the girl who didn't die, who is broken and battered but still holding on like his revolution, and he can't help this feeling, that the dark hand that swept out to cover the land has drawn back, retreating once more into the folds of night.

* * *

Much, much later, when his watch has ended and his eyes are at half-mast, he troops back into the wine shop, where the other Amis are snoring away on their makeshift pallets, while their patient lies still and huddled under a threadbare blanket, the slight rise and fall of her chest being the only indication that she continues to dodge the Reaper's scythe.

He settles himself into the empty space between Joly and Éponine, leaning his back against the wall. The languorous glow of candlelight fans out over her grime-coated cheeks. Enjolras has never really had any time for women, but in the haze of his exhaustion he stares at her blearily through arcs of shadow and bursts of flickering light, and it's as if he's looking at her from far away and she is beautiful in all her distance.

She starts to stir. The action is quiet and hesitant, like a butterfly crawling out of its cocoon. He watches as she opens her eyes and metamorphoses before him, all dark gold-flecked irises and paper lips and hair and flesh and blood.

"You," she grates out, hoarse and frail and whisper-soft.

"Me," he agrees. _Not the one you love, but the one who's here._ A half-smile curls at the corner of his mouth. "Welcome back, Mademoiselle."

She shudders. She looks like a caged animal; she looks haunted by ghosts. "You should have let me die."

* * *

And there had been this one night in the Musain, when tempers ran high and loud voices slammed into the walls. Enjolras and Combeferre were arguing, because that had been in the early days when Combeferre was more of a reformist than a revolutionary.

Beyond the jut of Combeferre's shoulder, Enjolras noticed the girl who was dressed like a boy slipping into the room. She cast furtive glances around, and after a while her posture drooped; Marius wasn't here tonight. Combeferre had everyone else's attention as he ranted about lobbying for increased democratic rights and social welfare, and Enjolras watched as Éponine took advantage of this distraction to snatch a piece of bread from a nearby table. She crammed it into her mouth, barely chewing, gulping it down as if she hadn't had a bite to eat in days, and that was when something clicked in Enjolras' head and he found his voice.

"The people are not even aware that they are _entitled _to rights!" he snapped at Combeferre.

He began to speak, then, of lives in shadow, of souls who slipped through the cracks, of human beings who did not know they were supposed to matter. _Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem. _He discussed at length the need to shake lofty society to its core so that it would look down. _Insurgo insurgi insurrectum. _He held his friends' gazes until they shied away. And although he was so swept up in his fervor that he never spared another glance at the girl in the corner, some distant part of him was aware that this was one of his finest speeches to date, and that he was speaking to her, and she was listening.

* * *

"'_Ah, dear prince,' replied she, 'it was you who were my companion during my long sleep. The moment I saw you, I recollected your face.'"_

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	3. Day Three: Den Lille Havfrue

**Notes: **45 follows after 2 chapters! You guys make me blush. Thank you all! I highly encourage you to leave feedback because I don't always know what I'm talking about and I need help tweaking characterization and what direction the story will take. I've loved the musical since forever, but the fandom itself is relatively new to me and so far it has been the absolute best. This chapter is the longest one so far, and it was also the most fun to write, and it includes a shout-out to the movie that I'm pretty sure Tumblr people will get. Corrections, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome.

* * *

**Day Three: Den Lille Havfrue**

* * *

She wakes up to the afternoon sun pouring its slatted light into her heavy eyes. She rises to her feet, a bit unsteadily, and makes her way out of the Corinth.

The Rue de la Chanvevrie seems brighter than it has ever been. The rebels are milling about, some puffing at tobacco, some playing cards, some chatting desultorily among themselves. A few are stationed at the barricade, look-outs looking bored out of their minds. Éponine peers through a gap between a bed frame and a sewing machine and sees the sentries' expressions mirrored by the soldiers posted at the other end of the street. The frenetic adrenaline of revolution has worn off, replaced by humdrum and monotony.

Her fingers trace along the surface of an overturned cart. There's a certain wrongness to the wooden grains, a sharpness. She feels disoriented, like she's woken up after a hundred years to find Paris reborn but still the same. Once you've accepted the fact that you're going to die, it's frustrating not to. It becomes a chore to have to go back out into the world and do the whole living thing again.

"Éponine!"

Long, smooth fingers curl under her elbow. Monsieur Marius is smiling broadly, handsome and happy in the mellow gold of the aging day.

The blood rushes to her cheeks as the memory of her pathetic, whimpered confession comes crashing back in full force. She'd felt so brave saying those things, like some tragic, noble heroine with a bullet in her body and a heart filled with love. But now she is still alive and undeniably still a street urchin, all shabby clothes and tangled hair and gaps in her teeth, and there's a trace of pity in his eyes that he can't quite mask. She must look so small to him. She _feels _so small, absolutely foolish and defeated and mortified.

"Where's Gavroche?" she asks. "Was he able to get out?"

"Gavroche stayed," he informs her. "But he's off on reconnaissance now. He volunteered to sneak out and scrounge for information and supplies." Sensing her worry, he quickly adds, "He is small and fast and smart, 'Ponine. He will be all right."

"When he comes back," she says, finding her voice, _when, _not _if, _not her brother, her little puppy, "I shall give him a thrashing he'll never forget."

Monsieur Marius chuckles, and then he turns somber, his grip falling from her elbow as a part of her wails at this loss of contact. "I have sent him my reply to Cosette's letter. I wanted to thank you for bringing it to me. For risking your life. I am forever in your debt. I don't know how I can ever repay you."

_You could love me, _she thinks wistfully. But she doesn't say anything; instead, she manages a small smile before excusing herself to explore the rest of the barricaded street.

In the end, we all turn into sea foam.

* * *

There's a cow.

Éponine stares blankly at the brown-and-white creature standing on the cobblestones with an air of undisturbed contentment, quietly oblivious to the arguments blossoming around it.

"We should slaughter the beast now," insists Bahorel. "The meat will sustain us for a fortnight."

"Meat spoils easily," Courfeyrac reminds him. "I move that we leave it for last, until the rest of the food runs out."

"Its shit will stink up the place," says Bossuet. "And what _are _we going to feed it?"

"Cows are hardy creatures," Feuilly remarks. "It can survive on water alone for a while."

"But if we wait too long, it's going to be skin and bones and no use to us," protests Bahorel.

Courfeyrac raises an eyebrow at him. "I am sorry, were you expecting finest steak this revolution? We have nowhere to store the meat, and that's that."

"I don't think any of us know how to butcher a cow, anyway," Combeferre adds. "Although perhaps the workers might."

"Here comes Enjolras," says Feuilly. "Let's ask him."

The blond boy strolls into their midst and the other Amis immediately begin to pelt him with their grievances. He listens silently, an implacable frown marring his marble-carved features, and Éponine ducks her head, not quite able to look at him yet. His eyes had been the first thing she saw when she woke up last night, those eyes like winter glass, clouded and smoky with a weariness that was softer than his usual anger and not enough to dampen it.

_You should have let me die, _she'd told him, and something in those eyes had flinched before he looked away.

His friends' voices increase in volume, earning curious glances from the rest of the street. Enjolras raises a commanding hand, shutting everyone up.

"Whose cow is this?" he asks.

Bossuet shrugs. "No one knows. It was left behind during the evacuation. I suppose the owners couldn't exactly bring it over the barricade."

"I see," Enjolras sighs, long-suffering and disdainful as he sinks deep into thought.

Courfeyrac latches onto this newest point. "This beast is someone's livelihood. We shouldn't kill it until the necessity arises."

Enjolras nods. "The cow lives," he declares.

Éponine reaches out to stroke the animal's soft flank. "May I name it?" she asks.

He stares at her. A muscle twitches along his jaw. "If you must."

The boys walk away, already discussing the next order of business, leaving her alone with the cow. It moves into her touch, peacefully chewing its cud, tugging at her heartstrings with its gentle, stupid gaze. Trapped like she was, caught up in circumstances beyond control.

"Aurore," Éponine decides.

* * *

Later that night, she's back in the Corinth, busying herself by sweeping the dirt from the floors. If she's stuck here, she might as well make herself useful, but Joly had refused to assign her more strenuous tasks because she was still recuperating from her injuries.

"Mademoiselle."

She would know that voice anywhere. She's heard it often enough, in the back room of the Musain, in the open space of public squares. What she's unfamiliar with is its grave, quiet tone.

"The National Guard has called for another grace period," Enjolras announces from the doorway of the wine shop. "More citizens are leaving. You may join them, if you wish."

It sounds like an order. He looks tired and disappointed and too young for this.

"I'm staying," she says.

He exhales impatiently. "You have been Marius' shadow far too long. Go home. You have been given another chance. Your fight is done."

She kind of wants to smack him with her broom. "I'm not leaving without my brother. Gavroche," she clarifies at his puzzled scowl.

What she doesn't say is: _I have no home to go back to. I cannot leave all of you here to face your fate, not after you bandaged my wounds and gave me shelter. This is how it was always meant to go._

"Very well," he says at last. "There will likely be another evacuation tomorrow. When Gavroche returns, the two of you should leave."

_When, _not _if. _She's grateful for that, and so, when he turns back to the night-strewn street, she murmurs, "I'm sorry, Monsieur Enjolras. I know this isn't how you thought your revolution would be."

He pauses, his lean frame tense, his elegant hands balled into fists. "What did you name the cow?" he asks, to her surprise.

She tells him.

"Aurore," he repeats meditatively. "A fanciful moniker, ill-suited to such an earthy beast of burden."

"It's from a story," she replies, raising her chin in defiance.

"Indeed." There it is again, that strange, enigmatic half-smile flitting across his lips. "So be it, Mademoiselle. I shall let you have your Dawn."

* * *

She watches him climb the barricade, keeping below the soldiers' line of fire, but high enough to tower over his paltry forces.

"Listen!" he declares, the word ringing out into the air. Conversations are cut short; heads swivel in his direction. "The National Guard desires to lower our morale. They think our cause some passing fancy, a tome to be dropped when it drags on. They believe ennui and hunger will quench the flame of our souls. Friends and comrades, I put to you this inquiry: is that the case?"

"No!"comes the resounding cheer. The street rings with cries of _Vive la France!_

Monsieur Marius is standing beside her, roaring along with the rest of them. She glances at his face and sees resignation rather than belief. By now, Cosette will have already left Paris. Éponine had once tried to console herself with the notion that the other girl was nothing more than a schoolboy's infatuation, but it is now painfully clear that Monsieur Marius loves her enough to die in the absence of her, as Éponine had been willing to die for his presence.

_Not for me, _she thinks. _Never for me._

"We will beat them at their own game!" Enjolras shouts, and her gaze flickers to him once more. "They will get bored long before we do!"

The crowd laughs and hoots. He has always been very good at bringing out the fire in people's eyes. He stands with a foot propped up on a table, one elbow resting on his bent knee, the other hand raising a fist to the sky. His disheveled hair blazes in the glow of the torches; his red jacket contrasts starkly against wood and night.

"We shall hold fast for as long as there is breath. We shall endure for as long as there is hope," he promises in a voice fairer than gold and brighter than glory. "Hope is the last good thing, my friends. Hope emerged after the dread creatures of Pandora's Box, and she will not desert us!"

The rebels cheer again. Beyond the rampart, Éponine catches the silhouette of the troops shifting uncomfortably.

"I stand before you now at this barricade as Orpheus stood at the gates of the underworld," Enjolras continues. "I will sing my song to Hades- nay, I will _scream _it in his face! I will make the Furies weep. And I will not rest until I drag my Eurydice back into the light!"

"Damn," Éponine sighs to Monsieur Marius, her voice barely audible in the midst of the impassioned cries of the spectators, "there goes my weekend."

He grins at her with the fondness of friendship, and, stoically, she breathes away the ache.

* * *

"_She lifted her glorified eyes towards the sun, and felt them, for the first time, filling with tears. On the ship, there was life and noise. She saw the prince and his beautiful bride searching for her; sorrowfully, they gazed at the pearly foam, as if they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen she kissed the forehead of the bride, and fanned the prince, and then mounted with the other children of the air to a rosy cloud that floated through the aether."_

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	4. Day Four: Fear At Last

**Notes: **I have tried to approximate in English how Gavroche would have talked in informal street French, and I can only hope that I didn't do too bad a job. The long Latin quote in this chapter translates to, "May it be my privilege to have the happiness of establishing the commonwealth on a firm and stable basis and thus enjoy the reward which I desire, but only if I may be called the architect of of the best possible government; and bear with me the hope when I die, that the foundations which I have laid for its future government, will stand deep and secure." There are two other Latin quotes here but they're short and kind of self-explanatory. As always, thank you for the reviews, follows, and favorites! I don't even know, guys, I wanted this to be a tragic story but it's turning out to be more like a slumber party at the barricade. And I'm glad you all like the cow! That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Corrections, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome.

* * *

**Day Four: Fear At Last**

* * *

Gavroche returns with the first rosy streaks of dawn, his small frame and quick feet easily slipping past the soldiers standing guard at the minor rampart blocking the Rue Mondétour. He dumps a couple of sacks at Enjolras' feet. The smell of fresh-baked bread rises in the air.

"We're the only barricade left," announces the gamin. "The lumps aren't taking prisoners. The other Societies've been offed."

"Why, then, do we still stand?" asks Combeferre.

Gavroche's eyes sparkle mischievously. "They're hot for the _leader. _They know Enjolras is here. They want to break him."

Feuilly claps Enjolras on the back. "Excellent work, my friend! You've made quite a name for yourself, it seems."

"The National Guard will not find me so easy to break," Enjolras vows sternly, albeit with a gleam of satisfaction that he can't quite mask.

Gavroche points to the food. "Compliments of the bakers. I didn't have to steal them. Parisians love a good story."

Courfeyrac ruffles the child's hair. "Within this scrawny little chest beats a heart as stout as any man's!" he fondly declares.

Gavroche beams, but before he can bask in the compliment, his expression changes, his eyes widening at the sight of something in the distance, and then he's throwing himself forward, screaming "Éponine!" at the top of his tiny lungs.

Éponine is running, too, a blur of laughter and dark hair. The two siblings collide into each other, conversing rapidly in argot. Enjolras watches her eyes light up, watches the quick flash of her smile. It occurs to him that he knows so little about her, that what he's seeing is another layer falling away to reveal someone who is not merely an urchin or Marius' shadow, but also a sister. He wonders about her family life and where she learned the pretty, proper French she uses with him, so different from the rough dialect of the streets that she's speaking now.

And, because he is Enjolras and there is business to be taken care of and he is not comfortable thinking fanciful things about other people, he strides over to them and interrupts the reunion perhaps a bit too harshly.

"Gavroche, I need you to tell me all the information you've managed to acquire from your night out," he orders. "Troop movements, the public mood, and the like. Walk with me while I inspect the fortifications."

Disgruntled, Éponine sticks her tongue out at him. He pretends not to notice.

"Oh, I almost forgot!" Gavroche exclaims, glancing at the sacks once more. "I also grabbed some feed. The cow's still here, isn't it?"

* * *

Inside the Corinth, Enjolras and his lieutenants study a map spread out on the table. With Gavroche's help, they mark the spots that are under surveillance. Soon the Rue de la Chanvevrie is almost completely surrounded by thick black X's.

"Ran into Madame Huchloup," says Gavroche. "She's staying with relatives. She told me her house here's got a loose section of wall and we can break it down if we need to get away."

"That will not be necessary," Enjolras remarks. "We shall defend the barricade with our last breath."

He'd been expecting the usual cheers from the other Amis, and so he is surprised when none comes. He glances around. There are bags under his friends' eyes and their complexions are wan.

_We're all tired, _he thinks.

* * *

Éponine turns this way and that, her skittish eyes roaming the bare bones of Madame Huchloup's house. The rebels had spared exactly one bed and the mantelpiece.

"Nice place," she says.

Enjolras leans one hand on the doorframe. She is incongruous within walls, within the trappings of domesticity, against a backdrop of curtains that trail from the windows in the summer breeze; she is made for secret streets and furtive nights.

"I am glad you like it," he says nevertheless. "You will be staying here from now on."

At her raised, questioning eyebrow, he continues, "It is unseemly for a girl such as yourself to sleep in the wine shop with the rest of us. And, here, there is a bed. You will be more comfortable."

She nods, but her tone is skeptical. "Right. And the fact that this house has a loose section of wall which I can break down if I have to escape has nothing to do with it?"

He does not deign to reply. She huffs. "You don't need to look out for me. I can take care of myself, Monsieur-"

"I've been thinking about that," he interrupts. "Honorifics are part of the archaic traditions that keep the people in chains. There will be none of that here at the barricade."

Éponine snorts. "Well, I'm not calling you Citizen Enjolras. That sounds stupid."

"Just Enjolras, then," he says. "Are you agreeable, Citizenness-?"

She starts when she realizes he's asking for her last name. "Jon- Thénard- no. Call me Éponine."

"Éponine." He can't stop himself from testing it out, tasting how it feels. The syllables flit gracefully on his tongue, like the ripple of water, like the flutter of wings. Epponina. The Roman insurrectionist. The loyal wife who died for love. "It suits you."

He wishes that it doesn't.

* * *

A shot rings out in the silence of late afternoon. Enjolras had been busy mediating Bossuet and Joly's argument over the bathing schedule, but when they hear the sound, they drop everything and rush into the street.

At first, Enjolras thinks someone's finally cracked and killed the blasted cow. But when he lays eyes on the chaotic scene, his pulse freezes.

One of the workers is sprawled on the cobblestones, blood blossoming from his chest like a red flower in the shadow of the barricade. The man they call Le Cabuc is standing over the body, a gun still smoking in his palm.

Bottles of liquor on the ground, playing cards everywhere- Enjolras is suddenly filled with an icy, demonic rage. Drawing his pistol, he marches over to Le Cabuc and claps an imperious hand on the man's shoulder.

"On your knees," he snarls.

"He called me a cheat!" protests Le Cabuc. "My honor demanded-"

"What would you know of honor, you who shot a comrade-at-arms in cold blood?" Enjolras tells him implacably. "On. Your. Knees."

Everyone else gathers around in a wide circle, watching with bated breath as Enjolras forces the trembling Le Cabuc to kneel on the ground.

"Mercy," whines the man, his cheeks pale.

"Collect yourself." Enjolras draws out his watch. "Think or pray. You have one minute."

Le Cabuc bows his head, mumbling fervent prayers to whatever gods he serves. Movement flickers at the periphery of Enjolras' vision; his eyes snap to Éponine, who has gathered Gavroche to her, pressing the child's face into her shirt. Behind her, the cow's ears twitch apprehensively, as if it senses the tension in the air.

She'd named the thing Aurore. He had liked that, in a foolish sort of way, because it had been full of hope. But the afternoon shadows are long and they hide his face and he is about to execute a fellow revolutionary. There is no dawn here.

Taking advantage of his momentary distraction, Bahorel calls out, "Due process, my friend. The man is entitled to a trial."

"We are all aware of his guilt," Enjolras retorts.

Bahorel approaches him tentatively. "Yes," he says in a low voice meant for Enjolras' ears alone. "But we need to know why he must die while we allow Javert to live. I am a poor student, but one thing I have learned is that even the unworthy deserve the law. Your fight for equality- it can start _here, _Enjolras, don't you see? With the people. _Your _people."

_My people, _Enjolras reflects, looking around. _Ita mali salvam ac sospitem p. sistere... _His troops are all staring at him. _In sua sede liceat atque eius rei fructum precipere... _They are a ragtag group of rebels, in which lay the foundations of something bigger than all of them combined, if he let it become so. _Quem peto, ut optimi status auctor dicar et moriens ut feram mecum spem… _The barricade catches the light of the setting sun. _Mansura in vestiguo…_

"Very well," he declares. "There will be a trial."

_Suo fundamenta rei p. quae iecero._

* * *

Le Cabuc is found guilty by a jury of his peers. There had been a street full of witnesses.

As night falls, Bahorel solemnly hands the pistol to Enjolras. The murderer shakes in the ropes that bind him. Enjolras looks upon the doomed man's face and feels no more anger, only resignation. He holds the gun to Le Cabuc's head.

"I pull the trigger so no one else has to," he says quietly, almost to himself, but his voice is amplified in the silence that wraps around the Rue de la Chanvevrie in a fog so thick it is almost tangible. "This is yet one more bullet I must carry, but I don't carry it for you, Le Cabuc. No, not for you."

Éponine is standing a few feet away. Her eyes are oceans in the darkness.

Enjolras fires.

_Vox populi, vox Dei. Ubi libertas ibi patria._

* * *

The National Guard decrees another grace period. Several more workers leave, but Éponine and Gavroche don't. Enjolras doesn't even try to argue anymore.

Grantaire offers him a drink. He takes it. And another. And another…

And when the world sweeps into midnight, when the passage of time brings Paris to the fifth day of revolution, he removes himself from the circle of his equally addled friends, who have taken it upon themselves to sing some desperate little rebel ditty in rounds, and his stumbling steps lead him out into the street, to Éponine's door.

* * *

"_He saw himself seated on a throne, spending his life trying, and never succeeding, to make poor people rich; miserable people happy; bad people good; never doing anything he wished to do, not able even to marry the girl that he loved. _

_The cries arose louder than ever: 'The king! The king!' And as the young man heard, a cold shiver, that he knew not the meaning of, ran through him._

_'This is fear whom you have so long sought,' whispered a voice, which seemed to reach his ears alone. And the youth bowed his head as the vision once more flashed before his eyes, and he accepted his doom, and made ready to pass his life with fear beside him."_

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	5. Day Five: The Pied Piper of Hamelin

**Notes: **Thank you once again for the reviews, follows, and favorites! I may not be able to respond individually, but rest assured that all your feedback is helping me give my best to this fic, such as it is. But to answer a question brought up: although the circumstances here are different, the execution in the previous part is book canon, as is Éponine's time in jail mentioned in this chapter. We're almost at the end now. Corrections, suggestions, and constructive criticism are welcome, as always.

* * *

**Day Five: The Pied Piper of Hamelin**

* * *

He hadn't looked like a man when he executed Le Cabuc. He had looked like a boy with a gun.

They all look like boys with guns here at the barricade, with their smooth faces and their clear eyes. Éponine is younger, but she already knows more about hardship than they do. This is a children's crusade, and, because of that, the execution scene had been nothing short of ominous. The memory of it blazes in her mind, the image of Enjolras bending the man down, pistol in hand, his golden hair falling across the sharp and shadowed angles of his face, rendering her unable to sleep.

Inside Madame Huchloup's house, Éponine studies the loose section of wall, marked by sloppily arranged wooden boards, the crooked nails driven only halfway through. She knows her streets; she knows this wall will lead into an alley, and that alley will lead to salvation because it is a thieves' shortcut unknown to the police. She can make her escape now, under cover of night, and put the revolution behind her. She can live again.

_The opening of doors, _the dark gaps between the boards seem to promise, Gavroche and Monsieur Marius fading into mere whispers at the edges of her subconscious. _The end of walls. Space, the sun, the city yours once more. Gather your rivers and break free. Remember that jail cell, the cold wet floor, the bars over the sky? You promised yourself in there that nothing would ever hold you again._

She reaches out and pries off a nail. The rusty iron trembles in her palm the same way the gun had in Enjolras'. She is suddenly gripped by the mad urge to start tearing at her prison, to _go, just go, little bird, quick-witted and fleet of foot, you will not die here-_

There is a slow, ponderous knock at the door. When she opens it, her gaze is already trained downwards because she thinks it's Gavroche. But what she finds herself staring at are fine-quality boots, lean legs, narrow hips.

"What are you doing here?" she asks.

Enjolras shrugs. He smells like someone's tossed him into a vat of whiskey. In the feeble lamplight his cheeks are pale and there's a feverish glint in his blue-black eyes.

Her first instinct is to snicker; so he isn't too high-and-mighty to enjoy baser pleasures, after all! And then she realizes that she'd rarely seen him drink in the time before, and amusement gives way to the most piercing sorrow as she remembers what had transpired earlier, how he'd stepped into the role of executioner by unspoken agreement. It's _his _barricade and _his _revolution and, ultimately, his burden.

There are many ways to escape, and she will not begrudge him this one.

She retreats in silent invitation and he staggers through, his sleeve brushing against her arm. She closes the door and turns back to the room to see him already sitting down on the bed, leaning casually against the wall, elbows out and ankles crossed with that elegant grace wound so intricately into his sinews that even alcohol can't conquer it.

There is a prince in a street rat's bedroom, but Éponine is too old for fairytales.

She sinks into the mattress, as far away from him as the small space will allow, stealing a glance at his profile. The women of Paris like to giggle about his angel's face, but in this murky sea of gold and shadow his features are thrown into odd relief, too harsh to be pretty.

"You did what had to be done," she says.

"Perhaps," he sighs, and then falls silent.

The secret, uncharitable part of her, the part that turned its nose up at Cosette and made rude gestures at her father's back, thinks, _If I'd only known that all it takes is alcohol to shut you up, I'd have forced entire bottles down your throat long before June, and this whole sorry mess could have been avoided._

But there is another part of Éponine that wouldn't leave without Gavroche, the part that gave her feet the wings it needed to climb the barricade and deliver Cosette's letter to Monsieur Marius, and it is this part that now makes her stretch an arm across the distance and rest her hand on Enjolras' shoulder.

"I am sorry," she rasps, "that you had to be the one to do it."

He sends her a fleeting half-smile in the gloom. His skin is warm through his shirt, beneath her palm. He is thinner than he was before; she'd heard rumors that his family had cut him off.

There's a question that's been nagging at her for months. "What turns someone like you into a revolutionary?"

His eyes meet hers. His voice, when he speaks, is small and raw with pain. "Someone like you."

She draws back, wrapping her arms around herself. "We never asked you to wage war for us, Enjolras."

"And I never asked you to stay," he quietly retorts. "Why did you?"

During the long fire-lit nights at the Musain and these slow and endless days at the barricade, she'd come to know bits and pieces of him- never the whole picture, but enough to realize what he in his drunkenness wants to hear. _Tell me this is your fight, too. Tell me you believe. _This poor little rich boy, who's never understood that people like her already fight tooth and nail trying to wedge themselves into the cracks of society and they take only what they can get, this aristocratic-faced bourgeois who sparked a revolution with his big ideas and his big words, who would see Paris in flames for the sake of building something better from the ashes.

_They will get tired of waiting for you, _she thinks. _The barricade will fall, and you're going to die._ The oily lamplight renders his features translucent; he already looks ethereal, almost a ghost. Boys like him are not meant to live long. The passion that drives them always consumes them in the end.

He's waiting for her answer. She can lie to him, _I believe, I believe, I will be with you until the very last. _She can make his burden tolerable. She's the mistress of faking it, she is more Jondrette than Thénardier.

But he knows her as Éponine.

She breaks eye contact, choosing instead to stare at the section of loosely-nailed boards in Madame Huchloup's house. _The opening of doors. The end of walls._

"_I'm staying, 'Ponine," _Gavroche had told her in the lull of the grace period after the execution, his lower lip jutting out stubbornly. _"And I think you are, too. This is bigger than us, y'know? Leave and see if you can look yourself in the eye ever again."_

"If I am water, you are fire," she says at last, distantly, free with her words because Enjolras is too inebriated, he will have forgotten them by the time morning comes. "Burn me up, bourgeois boy. Turn me into smoke."

* * *

She wakes up to daylight. He is sprawled out next to her on the tiny bed, snoring softly, one arm flung across her waist. The weight and warmth of it isn't exactly displeasing, but before she can process the strangeness of the situation, Joly barges into the room and does it for her.

"Enjolras, there you are!" he cries. "I tried to feed Javert and he _bit _me, Enjolras-" He falters to a stop, taking in the scene as Éponine throws off the offending arm and practically leaps from the bed.

"I'll… come back?" Joly stammers, looking confused.

"It's not what you think," snaps Éponine. She jabs Enjolras' side, perhaps a bit too roughly, and he pulls himself into a sitting position, blinking lazily, his golden hair falling into his dark blue eyes.

"What is the matter?" he asks Joly in a voice scratchy from sleep.

Joly holds out a trembling hand that's riddled with tooth-marks. "Javert bit me," he repeats, less panicky than before, his eyes darting between the two other people in the room.

Enjolras groans, rubbing his temple as he stands up. "Diseases cannot be transferred via human bites."

"You're not exactly a doctor, are you? I think I'm already coming down with something-"

The two students walk out, still arguing. Enjolras doesn't spare even a backwards glance in Éponine's direction, but, then again, she never expected him to.

* * *

It's the fifth day of revolution, and the people at the barricade are restless. The hung-over Amis wander the street desultorily, inspecting the two ramparts and checking their weapons. The cow moseys over to the corner of Rue Mondétour, earning an absent-minded pat from Courfeyrac and a very black, sour look from Bahorel.

Éponine hauls a bucket of water for Aurore to drink from, but Monsieur Marius stops her. "You shouldn't be doing heavy work," he says. "You've only just healed."

"I can handle it," she replies.

He takes the bucket from her anyway. There's a prickle at the back of Éponine's neck, and she turns to catch Enjolras' glance in their direction. He frowns when their eyes meet before looking away and resuming his discussion with the few remaining workers.

Aurore tips its nose into the bucket, lapping at the water greedily. "Poor thing," says Monsieur Marius. "It must dream of fields and hay."

"And what do _you _dream of, Monsieur?" she teases.

He grins at her. "That's _Citizen _Pontmercy to you."

She groans. "This is madness."

"Psst!" someone hisses from beyond the smaller rampart, and the worker posted there as a sentry automatically cracks his rifle.

It's a man in army uniform. At first, Éponine thinks they've moved up the customary grace period, but when she peers through the gaps of furniture she recognizes the face.

"My name is Valjean," says the old man. "I told the Guard I can talk some sense into you people, but I've come to volunteer."

* * *

Enjolras and his lieutenants are summoned, and, after a short consultation, they let Valjean through. He's smuggled some biscuits in his pockets, which are quickly distributed among the grateful rebels.

"There is a penalty for betrayal, Citizen," warns Enjolras. "We have the spy Javert tied up-"

"- And gagged," Joly butts in. "Gagged, now."

A long-suffering expression flickers across Enjolras' face. "And gagged," he continues. "We will not hesitate to do the same to you."

Valjean nods. "I understand."

* * *

"Ahoy there!" booms the officer's voice, much later, across the barricade at the Rue de la Chanvevrie.

Grantaire, who is leaning against a piano with bottle in hand, tips his head in the direction of the sound. "Yes?" he calls out.

"You have one of our men," replies the officer.

Grantaire's eyes flutter to Valjean. He takes a swig of liquor. "Yes," he says again in an agreeable tone.

There is a brief pause.

"Well, give him back," the officer finally demands, annoyed.

"He's changed sides," Grantaire roars. "Go away."

They hear the officer's boots thudding on the cobblestones as he stomps off. The Amis look at one another and start to chuckle. Éponine presses a hand to her mouth as mirth bubbles up inside her. Even Enjolras smiles.

Sometimes it's the bigger picture. Sometimes it's the little things.

* * *

Their punishment that night is the withdrawal of the grace period, but it had hardly been necessary in the first place. The people left at the barricade are the most fervent believers, the ones who have been given plenty of time to change their minds but refuse to.

However, belief doesn't fill stomachs, and the last of the food has run out.

"We're fine for now," says Combeferre to Enjolras, within earshot of Gavroche and Éponine. "We can skip dinner tonight. But I don't know about tomorrow, and the day after that…"

Éponine glares at Gavroche, who's already starting to square his shoulders. "No," she barks. "Don't do it."

"I've done it many times," brags the gamin. "I'll wait until later, when they're nodding off."

"You and I both know luck runs out," she hisses, slipping into argot. "One wrong step, one beam of light-"

"Sis," he interrupts, laughing in her face, "I can be shadow. I learned from the best, didn't I?"

* * *

Éponine was the first to hold Gavroche in her arms when he was born, kicking and shouting at the world. Her mother wept bitter tears and her father bowed his head, because it was yet another mouth to feed, but Éponine had been happy because she missed the dolls that had been sold and here, at last, was someone to whom she could tell the stories from the books long gone. And so she watched him grow, from a skinny baby to a skinny little boy, teaching him how to be quick, how to con, how to disappear, until he was even better at it than she was.

But luck runs out, when men are angry because they've been tricked, when everyone's on edge and looking for the slightest excuse. A foot can slip, a soldier can glance at the wrong spot at the wrong time and decide to follow orders.

Inside her borrowed house, Éponine hears the shot in the stillness of night. She curls up in bed and starts to cry. A life of vanishing around corners and ducking from the police has taught her to be silent, but before she was Jondrette, she was Thénardier and had been capable of throwing the most glorious, spoiled tantrums that had made her once doting parents' ears ring.

And so she sobs and screams, pummeling the threadbare sheets with her bare fists, as outside there are rushing footsteps and a muttered conversation taking place outside her door. She shouts her rage into the walls until her throat is raw, her eyes screwed up and puffy with hot tears, salt dripping down her nose, into her mouth.

Strong arms wrap around her shuddering frame. Gasping and wheezing, she strikes out, her closed fist slamming into an elegant jaw. Enjolras reels back, looking shocked, and suddenly she's yelling at him in the language of the streets, her streets, her chest tight with hatred, her stomach churning with bile.

She is Éponine Thénardier, and they took her brother away.

He remains silent and still, absorbing all of her verbal abuse, and when her screams finally give out, when her sobs fade into whimpers, he doesn't move to hold her again. Instead, he slips his hands into his pockets, regarding her with creased brow and shadowed eyes.

"Blame me," he says simply.

"No," she whispers, voice ugly and thick and rotten. "You can't have my blame. I already gave you everything else."

* * *

"_It's dull in our town since my playmates left!_

_I can't forget that I'm bereft_

_Of all the pleasant sights they see,_

_Which the Piper also promised me._

_For he led us, he said, to a joyous land…_

_The music stopped and I stood still,_

_And I found myself outside the hill, _

_Left alone against my will,_

_To go now limping as before,_

_And never hear of that country more!"_

* * *

**To Be Continued**


	6. Day Six: Koschei the Deathless

**Notes:** I still can't believe all the great feedback and amazing support my little AU has gotten, both here and on Tumblr. You guys are the best, I cannot stress that enough. This is the second-to-the-last chapter, and fans of Catherynne Valente will see her influence here. There's only one more part after this, but, to tide you over, I have a little drabble collection on my blog which includes outtakes from Years Built on Sand ( youarethesentinels . tumblr . c*m / post / 42925046612 / the-history-books-forgot-about-us-e-e-drabble ). So I hope you like that, and this update, too. Corrections, suggestions, and constructive criticism are very welcome.

* * *

**Day Six: Koschei the Deathless**

* * *

The shot had woken Enjolras up. He and the other Amis had rushed out of the Corinth in their bare feet and their un-tucked white shirts to see the sentry at the Rue Mondétour crying and gesturing weakly at something beyond the smaller rampart.

"I didn't even see the kid slip away," the sentry choked, rambling with grief, "but the guards did. He's dying, he's bleeding out, I have a son his age, he's dying, this isn't how a child should die-"

Courfeyrac had peered through the gaps in the furniture and dropped to his knees, and Enjolras… hadn't looked.

He tried to. He took one step closer to the barricade, but something inside him froze abruptly with the realization that he wouldn't be able to bear it, the sight of Gavroche on the cobblestones. It would be too much for the heart to hold.

And so he walked away, shoulders sloped with the crippling weight of his shame. _What a fine general you are, _he told himself savagely in his father's voice. _What a man. To lead them to their deaths and not watch them fall. You are a boy playing soldiers._

When he heard her screaming, it had almost sounded like salvation.

* * *

Madame Huchloup's chairs are at the barricade; there is nowhere for him to sit except for the bed, but the throbbing pain in his jaw makes him wary. Éponine has an impressive right hook, for such a spindly little thing.

He kneels on the floor by the bed, his arms folded on the mattress. Her head drops forward on the thin pillow and her long, dark hair splays out, the tangled strands grazing his knuckles. He stares quietly at the wall as she cries herself to sleep.

_Forgive me, _he thinks, her sobs wrenching at his chest. _Forgive me, because I know you loved him. I carried his bullet, but I couldn't even watch him die._

She drifts off at some point past midnight. Her ragged breathing evens out and she sinks into the grace of oblivion, turning her back to him, her cheek curving in the lamplight. He thinks about the way she'd felt in his arms, all skin and bones and restlessness. It would have been like trying to hold on to water, if she hadn't been so warm.

He thinks about that, because he cannot think about Gavroche, or Mabeuf, or Le Cabuc, or Jehan.

Once he's satisfied that she's out for the night, he stands up and tucks the flimsy blanket over her huddled frame. He douses the lamp and returns to the Corinth, where his friends are sipping wine from dingy glasses. They've left the seat at the head of the table empty, and he takes his place with a heavy, exhausted thud, chair legs scraping across the floor.

"I think," says Combeferre, "that I have imbibed more this revolution than during that week we spent in Provence, which, even now, remains a blur to me."

"Be grateful for small mercies," snorts Bahorel. "You do _not _want to remember what you did."

"The day before we left, I saw the vineyard owner putting up a 'No university students allowed' sign," Bossuet remarks.

The others chuckle. Combeferre bows his head, good-naturedly accepting the taunt.

"I should have liked to, though," he muses, gaze full of distant light. "I should have liked to remember."

"Jehan was in fine form that week," says Grantaire, still laughing. "He wooed the milkmaid, the washerwoman, _and _the vineyard owner's daughter."

Feuilly smiles, shaking his head. "That sign was for him, then. Not Combeferre."

"It was for all of us," declares Courfeyrac. "We are sworn to go through fire together, to trample grapes together-"

"- To steal Professor Babineaux's wig together!" Joly pipes up.

Bahorel chokes on his wine. "Grantaire," he gasps out, helpless with guffaws, "Grantaire- hid it down- his pants-!"

"And when Babineaux called me over for inspection, Jehan put his hand down my ass, grabbed the wig, and stuffed it into _his _pants!" Grantaire exclaims. "I told him afterwards- I told him I had never felt so close to him as I did in that moment!"

They're howling now, pounding on the table, clapping one another on the back. Even Enjolras cracks a smile, because there it is again in his mind, Jehan fidgeting in the classroom, trying not to scratch at the bulge of the wig tickling his thighs, the afternoon light pouring through the windows, falling on him as light always had, always will in Enjolras' memories. His gaze flickers to the empty chair beside Feuilly. Even now, there is light there, the feeble glow of the lamp shining brightest on that spot. He is rarely fanciful, but he thinks that, if he squints, he might be able to see Jean Prouvaire.

_Wait for us, my friend. _He grips his wine glass so that his hand won't reach out to the vacant seat. _Wait for us awhile._

Courfeyrac wipes tears from his eyes, but whether they are of mirth or sorrow, it's impossible to tell. "I will never forget that day," he says. "It was the first act of anarchy Enjolras ever instigated. We were so young, weren't we? We weren't even twenty yet, were we?"

"Speak for yourself," Bossuet mutters, provoking another round of hilarity which ebbs quicker than the previous ones, the Amis falling silent, their faces bearing the weight, the glorious weight of times gone by.

"_Santé, _then," says Enjolras, raising his glass. "From professors' wigs to the revolutionary flag! Let us hope Grantaire does not put _that _down his pants!"

They laugh again, his friends, his comrades, who will follow him until the end, whom he will lead into the land of the dead. _"Santé, _my brothers," Enjolras continues. "To the days that were ours."

They toast. They exchange grins. They talk some more about Jehan.

* * *

"Javert has disappeared," Marius announces early in the morning. "I went to check on him, and he's… not there."

Enjolras processes this information with disbelief and more than a little annoyance. "Where could he have gone?" he demands.

"Probably went off to bite more people," Joly mutters darkly. "Spreading his filthy Javert germs…"

"Joly," Enjolras grits out, fed up, "I swear to _God, _you try my patience."

Overhearing this exchange, the old volunteer Valjean shakes his head to himself, as if he thinks they're all schoolboys who have no idea what they're doing.

* * *

When Enjolras sees Éponine again, she's sitting on the front stoop of one of the houses, her chin propped up on her hands as she watches the cow go through the last of its feed.

"You changed," he says, eyeing her chemise and skirt. In the past few days, he's gotten used to her in male attire, and this sudden return to femininity unsettles him.

"I ransacked Madame Huchloup's daughter's wardrobe," she says dully. "I couldn't wear my old clothes any longer."

Unspoken words hang in the air: _I was wearing them when he died._

He slips his hands into his pockets, clears his throat. "Have you eaten?"

"There's nothing left to eat, Enjolras."

He glances around the street. The other rebels are slumped and lackadaisical today, more sullen than ever.

"I'm sorry," Éponine blurts out, "for what I said last night. I wasn't thinking clearly. You don't get my blame, because there's no blame to give. My brother chose. It wasn't your fault."

He can't bring himself to look at her. He turns his head in the direction of the barricade, and she follows his gaze. "I carry all your bullets."

"No." Her voice is sad and soft, and it sounds like what he imagines a woman's smile in the dark must be. The red flag streams in the air. "You carry us."

* * *

"Enjolras." Combeferre's voice is low and somber in his ear at sunset. "The men are starving."

"All right," Enjolras replies, quiet and resigned. "All right."

In the fading light of day, the cow is almost a mere shadow at the end of the street. He approaches it with a racing heart, with shotgun in hand. Aurore moos plaintively, as if sensing its doom.

"No." Éponine is a blur in front of him, walking backwards, matching his pace, panicked and agitated. "No," she begs, her dark eyes wide, her quick little hands fluttering on his arms, "no, please-"

He comes to a stop, determinedly pushing her to the side, and he takes aim. She steps in front of the barrel, and the gun almost slides from his grasp. The entire street is hushed, watching.

"Move, Éponine," Enjolras hisses.

She shakes her head.

"Marius!" he barks out. "Take her away." _Don't make her look._

As Marius walks toward them, a change comes over the girl. Enjolras watches the muscles under her face shift, watches her shoulders throw themselves back, watches her chin lift. She holds out her palms.

"Let me do it," she says.

"No," he snaps, fiercely.

She glares at him. "At least let me have that much."

Defeated, he passes the shotgun to her. She trembles a little bit at its weight, but her form is steady when she pulls the weapon into her shoulder. He steps back. The red-gold rays of the setting sun glance off her hair, her skin. Her bottom lip quivers as she looks into the cow's eyes. She is magnificent in the dusk, braver than he is, sighting down the barrel, her finger curling around the trigger, ragged and ruined and angry about all the things she has lost.

_Patria, _Enjolras thinks, and Éponine fires.

* * *

The Amis eat their rations inside the Corinth. The meat is bitter on Enjolras' tongue.

"It's charred," Bossuet complains. "Who the hell cooked this?" His eyes snap to Joly and he growls out the other boy's name in accusation.

Joly sniffs. "If you knew the dangers of raw meat- better overdone than underdone, I say."

Bossuet's fist abruptly slams down on the surface of the table, making the plates shake. "You are a terrible doctor and a terrible chef!"

"You're bald!" Joly retorts, raising his voice.

"Everyone, calm down," Combeferre starts to say, but he is interrupted by Bahorel.

"Welcome back, the pacifist! Where were you before this mess?"

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. "I am relieved you think so highly of my revolution, Bahorel," he says coldly.

"No," snarls Bahorel, thin-lipped and white-faced. "You do not get to use that tone with me. I am _stuck _here because of you. Surrounded by idiots and people who can't cook!"

The dam finally breaks, after days of tension, days of ennui. Everyone starts talking loudly all at once, every single drop of pent-up frustration spilling onto their tongues, except for Grantaire, who pours himself another glass of whiskey.

Upon seeing this, Feuilly knocks the glass away. It shatters on the floor. "Will! You! Stop! _Drinking!" _he yells at Grantaire.

"I drink when I please!" roars Grantaire. "You ill-mannered lout! You- you Poland-lover!"

They are young men, and restless and disappointed and itching for a fight. It's not long before they come to blows. Courfeyrac stands up, points an unsteady finger at Enjolras.

"You promised us we would die together!" he shouts, he who had been the first of them to see Gavroche's corpse. "But you let them take Jehan first-"

A low rumble of rage curls up in the back of Grantaire's throat. He hurls himself across the table, fists swinging, raining blows on Courfeyrac. The other Amis join in the tussle, exchanging savage kicks and punches and curses that carry a hint of despair. Knives and forks fly everywhere and plates break.

"What on earth is going on here?" thunders Marius from the entrance.

Feuilly throws a plate at him, which he only barely manages to dodge. "This is none of your business, Pontmercy! Go back to mooning over your tramp!"

"Don't talk about her like that," Marius growls, stalking over to them.

And it is chaos, and fury, and bile, the bonds of friendship being set loose to rage against the mind-numbing hopelessness of a slow, slow death. They dare not touch Enjolras, because, even after all's said and done, he is still their leader, but he feels every fist, every boot as keenly as if he is the one being hit. He watches, blankly at first, and then helplessly, all his grand dreams turning into ash.

_Boys playing soldiers, _whispers his father's voice.

A booming shout from farther away cuts through the commotion. "You at the barricade! Listen to this!"

A hush and a stillness overtakes the Amis, although Grantaire can't resist shoving Combeferre roughly one more time. The other boy glares at him as he dusts off his shirtfront with an affronted huff.

"This is the beginning of your last grace period, and your longest yet!" shouts the army officer. "We will attack tomorrow. Whoever is still behind the rampart at three in the afternoon will be killed on sight! Think carefully before you throw your lives away. You have until three in the afternoon tomorrow!"

This announcement is greeted by a shocked silence. Finally, Courfeyrac starts laughing through the cuts in his lips.

"Enjolras was right," he wheezes. "They got bored before we did."

The others start chuckling, tentatively at first, but soon the sound of mirth is bouncing off the walls, falling against the windowpanes, and if some of them start to weep, it is kindly unremarked upon.

"General." Joly picks up the stem of a broken glass, holds the sharp end out to Enjolras, as if it were a sword. He's nursing a black eye, but he's beaming. "We who are about to die salute you."

* * *

He goes to her that night with every intention of making her leave. He will tear out the damn boards himself if he has to. Fury lingers on his tongue, in the hidden parts of him; although he had left his friends in good terms, their accusations still ring in his ears.

His temper getting the best of him, he knocks perfunctorily on Éponine's door and lets himself in without waiting for permission. She's standing in the middle of the room, staring at the loose wall, but she whirls around at the sound of his entrance, looking slightly guilty.

He is startled by the bitterness that rises up in him. _This is what you wanted, _he tells himself. _You wanted her to go, and she's going._

"Be my guest," he tells her, gesturing to the wall.

"I've already been your guest far too long," she says with wry humor.

And he realizes that this is it. He will never see that smirk again, never again see her roll her eyes or hold a gun like a warrior. He will never go back to university or drink coffee at the Musain. It all ends tomorrow.

He starts to tremble. He had tried so hard to be strong all throughout this endless catastrophe, but he is exhausted and all nerves. _Look at you, little man, shaking in your shoes. You're afraid to die, after all. Your song fades, Orpheus. Eurydice slips from your grasp._

"I didn't ask for this," he grates out, breathing harshly. "I wanted to fight, not to wait. This is not a revolution." He remembers those who had been killed, he remembers those who had left. "We are getting picked off one by one, like flies. I wanted a _spectacle!" _His voice rises, sounding almost like a whine, a tantrum. _Poor little spoiled bourgeois, all your life you thought you could have the world just by asking for it. It's not that easy, it's never that easy. _"I wanted to be glorious! This is not it; this is a laughingstock, a farce!" Leave us, Éponine," he finishes, glowering at her. "This grave of fools is not for you."

Slowly, she closes the distance between them. "You don't get to tell me where my grave is. I decide, always."

Unexpectedly, she reaches out to brush a lock of hair from his forehead. A woman's touch, his first and his last. "Do you have any idea what you've accomplished?" she murmurs, always and forever the shadow, the voice in the dark and the lamplight. "You barricaded a street for- it will be one week tomorrow. You halted business, you prevented anyone from passing through here. You stopped the world, Enjolras. You beat the National Guard, because they blinked first." Her hand falls away from his face, and he is surprised by how fervently he wants to grab hold of it, bring it back to him. "You're going down in history, every single one of you and your friends. The last barricade, the seven-day Republic. France will remember you." Her voice lowers, becomes raspier, more tender. Affectionate, almost. "You will never die, bourgeois boy."

A chill runs through him. "That is even worse." Pages of textbooks flip in his mind. Classroom discussions, debates. "My motives will be misconstrued. They will lose sight of who I was. They will resurrect me, again and again." All his old speeches come back to haunt him, their flowery metaphors, the minor errors in Latin declension. "I will have to get up and say my lines over and over throughout the long years. They will know we fought for them, but they won't know about Grantaire's drinking problem, or Joly's hypochondria, or the notebook of poetry in the pocket of Jehan's coat." He's rambling, but he doesn't care. These are the important things, he realizes that now, now that he is about to lose them, his death looming on the horizon. These are the things that matter, but they will be lost. "They won't know about you, Éponine."

"But you do," she quietly replies. "You know about me."

He is suddenly very conscious of how clearly he sees, feels, smells, and hears things. Old wood and linen. The sputter of oil, the soft and tattered pattern of her breathing. The flecks of gold in her dark eyes, the shadow of lashes on her cheek. The flow of blood in his veins. It's as if his senses are soaking up the world, in preparation of all that is to come after it.

He reaches for her hair, running his hand through its thick mass, feeling every tangle, every wave. _You are the night, _he wants to say, _you are the streets. _But that would be inaccurate, because she is no longer smoke. She's turned into something real, his first and his last. Her eyes are all he can see as he wraps the ends of her hair around his fingers. He tugs gently, and she follows, collapsing into his arms, crashing against him like an ocean. He bends his head, his fingers still filled with the loops of her hair, and he moves his lips, and she is there, waiting for him.

* * *

"_Amidst great rocks_

_Koshchey the Deathless leaping,_

_Onward rides,_

_Wild and fierce_

_And free again from chains._

_Like the storm he howls and weeping,_

_Sprays the steppes_

_With burning tears of rage."_

* * *

**To Be Concluded**


	7. Day Seven: The Black Bull of Norroway

**Notes: **The lovely people of Tumblr have made some pretty amazing graphics for this fic. Do check out their blogs at girlbehindthescrawledletters . tumblr . c*m / tagged / unicornesque* (keep the asterisk after my FFN penname) and loveholic198 . tumblr . c*m / post / 43209501878 / at-dusk-through-narrow-streets-by-unicornesque :) In this chapter is a Doctor Who reference, and the end of our story. Thank you so much for reading. It was only seven chapters, but it was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life as a writer and I'm glad I got to share it with all of you. Long live this life-ruining fandom, and long live the friendships and the camaraderie formed because of it.

* * *

**Day Seven: The Black Bull of Norroway**

* * *

He has no idea what he's doing. The bridge of his nose knocks against her chin when he surges; his teeth dig too harshly into her lips. His hands are clumsy, everywhere, moving with neither rhythm nor finesse, as if they're trying to grab hold of everything they can reach.

But, then again, so are hers.

He backs her up until the backs of her knees hit the bed and they go down in flames, bodies crumpling into the mattress, her skirt riding up, her thighs rising around his hips like white flags of surrender. Through half-closed lids she sees the window over the jut of his shoulder, the lower half of the sky dotted with stars and buildings, and then his mouth is on her collarbone and his hand slips under her chemise and she cries out, arching up into him, and for a while she sees nothing at all.

Éponine has lived through winter nights on the street and days of hunger and jail cells and police raids, and she had thought she knew all there was to know about life, but she hadn't known it could feel like this, that lips could burn and skin could spark, that a boy in her bed could be both prince and dragon, worshipper and god. They shed their clothes like old feathers; they drink each other in like wine. Enjolras is a marble statue in the lamplight, pale and golden all at once, hard chest and strong arms and sharp angles, but his gaze darkens when she rocks against him and suddenly he is anything but made of stone.

_Eyes open, eyes open, _she tells herself, her fingers threading through his soft hair as he buries his face in her neck, panting roughly into her skin. _Take what you can, little beggar, silent shadow. Remember this moment. Remember everything that will be lost once morning comes. You are wretched and wicked, and alive._

But it is too much, this world of fire and star-fall. He pins her hands to the mattress and they move and her body betrays her, her eyes drifting shut once more. _Take me there, _she begs him with every half-choked gasp, with the last fading dregs of rational thought. _Lead me to salvation. Take me there, and let me stay._

* * *

Afterwards, they lie on their backs, side by side, and she tells him about her life, the books she lost, the transformation from Thénardier to Jondrette, the first time she stole something, the boy she fell in love with. She talks until her voice is spent, and then it's his turn. She listens intently to his stories of growing up bourgeois, his days at university, his friends' drunken antics. He gives her his Greek myths in exchange for her fairytales; he gives her his regret at not being able to watch Gavroche die, and his promise to do better in the future. He says all of this in a tone hushed with wonder, as if he can't believe it's the last time he'll ever get to say any of it.

"And then there was you," he finishes, frowning. "You have made things… more difficult for me."

She can't help feeling a bit miffed. "Oh, well, sorry for that," she snipes.

"You don't understand. This is the burden." He gestures around at the wood and the walls, at the sky and the street outside the window. "I carry the barricade. I see it even in my dreams. But, because of you, now it is heavier to bear."

When she wakes up, the night has faded into dawn and he is reaching for her again. "More weight," he croaks, and the light is brighter but the shadows are longer and this time they're both crying, this time it's salt and ashes, this time she feels like she's already making love to a ghost.

* * *

When she slips out into the Rue de la Chanvevrie, she runs into Monsieur Marius. They look solemnly at each other. _Are you ready to die?_

"Have you seen Enjolras?" he asks.

She gestures to the closed door of Madame Huchloup's house. "Asleep," she says, without shame or regret. It's too late for any of that now.

Monsieur Marius nods, as if he's been expecting it. "Won't you walk with me?"

_You know I would do anything for you, _she thinks, her heart clenching. It's not even because she loves him; it's because his was the first kind face she'd seen in years, and after today she's never going to see it again.

They stroll down the street until they reach the barricade, where some of the Amis are cleaning their weapons and sousing out the rampart for weak spots.

"Grantaire's drinking again," a grumpy Combeferre tells Monsieur Marius. "At this rate, he's going to pass out and miss the whole thing."

Monsieur Marius chuckles. "Just like any other day, then. Good for him!"

"His aim's shot to hell anyway," says Bossuet. "He'll be of no use to us."

"With Grantaire's coordination and your luck, Bossuet, he'll end up shooting _you," _Joly remarks.

The boys snicker, and Éponine looks away, giving them privacy for one of their last moments together. She and Monsieur Marius turn around and begin walking again, all the way up to the other end of the street. It seems a very silly thing to be doing on the last day of their lives, but she savors it, the air in her lungs, the way her muscles can move without urging. How wasteful, the way she'd taken these little things for granted.

He speaks up. "The night Gavroche… _that _night, I saw you and Enjolras through the window."

"Oh." She blinks. "Did you see me punch him?"

He grins, looking surprised and delighted. "No, but now that you've told me that, I wish I had."

She smirks in response. _Thank you for being my friend, _she wants to say, but they already have a history of embarrassing confessions from her, and so she remains silent, waiting for him to continue.

"I saw him kneeling on the floor, by your side, waiting for you to fall asleep," he tells her solemnly. "It almost looked like he was praying. And I thought- I remember thinking- _maybe in another life."_

"In another life I will find you again," she promises fiercely. "You, and him, and Gavroche. I'm good at finding people. I know my way around."

"But do you know how to live, 'Ponine?" he asks her softly. "Because this is not your war. Because there is a loose section of wall in Madame Huchloup's house. Because you can escape, if you choose."

"Monsieur Marius." Her breath catches in her throat. "I can't leave all of you here to die. I would have-"

"You would have died for me," he interrupts, looking vaguely regretful. "But you _didn't. _The bullet missed. Any closer to your vital organs, and you wouldn't be here now. _Inches, _my dear girl. Could you really let that go?"

She stops walking and so does he. She turns to face him, angry, almost. "You have no idea," she hisses, "just how much I can let go of."

He opens his mouth to argue, but, just at that moment, they hear someone shouting.

Grantaire's staggered out of the wine shop, holding an empty bottle. "It's gone!" he slurs at the other Amis. "All of it, all the liquor! We have drained the Corinth to its last drop, you magnificent bastards!" His finger swings wildly as he points from one boy to the next. "We have set a new record, you glorious sons of bitches! They will never forget us!"

The other boys boo and pelt him with pebbles.

"That was nearly all you, you nihilist!" Courfeyrac exclaims. "I can't believe you didn't leave the last for us. Wallow alone in your victory, you alcoholic fop!"

Grantaire flings his arms across his face to shield himself from the debris, snorting with inebriated merriment.

"Sleep it off," says Feuilly, pushing him back indoors. "Sleep it off and fight with us, horrible cad that you are!"

"No, don't," says Bossuet hurriedly, clutching his chest as if Grantaire's already accidentally shot him, and they are all laughing in the mid-morning light, only hours to go before the final assault, and their faces are young in the shadow of the barricade, so young.

"This is why you have to leave," Monsieur Marius tells Éponine as they watch the scene unfold from the other end of the street. "Someone has to keep this. Someone has to hold it in their heart. For once in your life, 'Ponine, don't let go."

* * *

It's almost three in the afternoon. Some of the rebels are sent to the small rampart blocking the Rue Mondétour, but the rest assemble at the Rue de la Chanvevrie, what few of them are left.

Éponine's expecting a rousing speech, some eloquent and awe-inspiring last words, but, instead, Enjolras glances around and simply asks, "Where is Grantaire?"

"Asleep," Combeferre replies.

Enjolras' dark blue eyes soften, like the thaw of winter ice. He nods and turns to the barricade. Silently, guns in hand, they all count down the minutes.

"Your time is up!" the army officer announces from beyond the rampart. "Who's there?"

Enjolras takes a deep breath. Éponine's a few paces behind him, but she knows that aristocratic face will be white and haggard and tense, and still much too young for this. But everyone grows up, and in the midst of the slow shifting of the years, there are moments when a boy becomes a man.

"French Revolution!" Enjolras calls back, and it begins.

* * *

The tower crumbles and the enemy is everywhere and the air is thick with screams and smoke. She aims and fires and ducks, and out of the corner of her eye people fall to the ground like rain, mowed down by bullets. And she'd been prepared to die, but suddenly she's fighting for her life, dodging the shots, swinging at the soldiers that come too close.

_I'm still alive, _she finds herself thinking as the seconds pass. _Why am I still alive?_

She knows why. She is Éponine Thénardier, and she will hold back the night and keep the sun from going down, for as long as she can.

Someone grabs her by the waist. She's about to lash out, but a blur of golden hair penetrates the adrenaline rush and her fist falls limply to her side as Enjolras drags her into Madame Huchloup's house.

"Go," he says tersely. He's spattered with blood and bruises and his breathing is uneven. "_Go, _Éponine. No matter what you say, this is not your grave."

"_Then where is it?" _she yells over the roar of breaking glass and heavy footsteps and the pounding of her own heart. "Where do you want someone like me to die, bourgeois boy?"

Much to her amazement, he smiles, that strange lopsided smile, as if he's realizing that's somehow become her term of endearment for him, the only one they will ever get to share.

"Not with someone like me," he replies.

And then he's kissing her, hard and fast and savagely, through the blood and the pain, through the water and the fire. His eyelashes brush against her cheek and his hands clasp around her shoulder-blades, drawing her close, holding her like he might never let her go.

_One more day, _she's praying, her head spinning and her heart shattering as her tongue slides over his teeth with fervor and desperation and all her lost hopes. _Just give us one more day._

He breaks the kiss, and the dazed, happy look on his face is too much. _This is who we could have been. This is what we could have had._

He presses his lips to her forehead, fierce and tender all at once. "You are my revolution," he murmurs, his breath warm against her skin.

And then he shoves her backwards.

That's when she realizes that, at some point while she'd been walking with Monsieur Marius, Enjolras woke up and pried off all the nails from the loose section of wall, because suddenly she's crashing through wood and dust and splinters, propelled into the alleyway outside the Rue de la Chanvevrie, her elbows scraping the harsh ground.

_No, _she wants to say, staring at him, about to stand up and rush back to his side and-

"_Joly!" _someone shouts from the street, in a voice wrecked by sobs. _"Joly!"_

And Enjolras flinches, and Éponine understands that he's sacrificed watching his friend die so he could save her life.

When does a girl become a woman?

"Give them hell," she whispers.

He nods, shoulders his rifle, and marches out the doorway to rejoin the fight. He doesn't look back. It doesn't matter whether it's a Greek myth or a fairytale. They are all stories in the end, and Orpheus learns from his mistakes.

* * *

Éponine runs, through a maze of alleys and corners, under a wide open sky, her feet gliding over the cobblestones. She will live to see France become a republic, although it will be a mess and she will imagine Enjolras sighing in well-bred disgust. Years from now, they will erect a statue in honor of the boys of the barricade, and she will see his likeness raising the flag, and she will shake her head because fire cannot be captured by stone. She will dream of fair and blue-eyed children.

But, for now, she runs, a stitch blossoming at her side, pushing on until her lungs are about to burst. She doesn't hear the gunshots; she hears the Amis laughing and arguing, and Enjolras declaring _The cow lives, _and the incoherent words he groaned into her ear inside their borrowed house.

When she is an old woman, people will still be talking about the city of schoolboys, the seven-day Republic. The name Enjolras will have become a creed, a promise, a threat to those who would seek to chain their fellow men. The younger ones will ask her if she had been there and if she had known him, and she will nod. _Yes, we were there, _she will think,_ and he was young and beautiful and he carried us, he carried me. It was the summer of 1832 and we were there, and not even the world can take that away._

But, for now, she runs, shoving her way through the crowds, her eyes blurry with sweat and tears. She runs because that was the only thing he could give her. She runs because she already knows, deep in her heart, that her last dream will be of the barricade. In that dream he will be there, standing on top of the rampart, smiling his crooked, rueful half-smile, one hand holding the flag while the other one rubs the spot on his jaw where she'd punched him. And she will climb the tower, and, ever the gentleman, he will help her up while she insists she doesn't need his help. In that last dream he will not let go, because he is fire and she is water, and together they will become smoke.

* * *

"_She sang, 'For seven long years I served for thee,_

_The glassy hill I climbed for thee,_

_Thy bloody clothes I wrang for thee;_

_And wilt thou not waken, and turn to me?'_

_He heard, and turned to her."_

* * *

**The End**


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